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Seamless Transfer Pathways

Student-Centered Solutions to Improve Transfer Success

In Fall 2017, the Education Design Lab (Lab), with funding from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF), launched Seamless Transfer Pathways. This two-year design challenge, funded with four years of evaluation, seeks solutions to address the staggeringly low transfer and completion rates among community college students.

This paper provides learnings from the ongoing design challenge, sharing the pilots of each of the four teams: Miami Dade College and Florida International University; Township High School District 211, Harper College, and Northern Illinois University; Collin College and University of North Texas; and Northern Virginia Community College and George Mason University.

an inside look at the design challenge

From Kick-Off to Pilot Launch

Eighty percent of students who enroll each year in a community college aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree. But only 1 in 4 students make the leap to a four-year institution within five years. See how the Seamless Transfer Pathways cohort aimed to address this by exploring the question: how might community colleges and four-year universities dramatically improve transfer and baccalaureate attainment rates by reframing the end-to-end experience from the student’s point of view?

Design Challenge Kick-off

Gallery Walk + Ideation

Forming a Pilot

Overview

Beginning in Fall 2017, the Education Design Lab, with funding from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation led an intensive Design Challenge to re-design the student transfer experience. Research shows that 80 percent of students who enroll in one of our nation’s community colleges every year express an intent to complete a bachelor’s degree at a four-year institution. Yet, in the end, only 25 percent make the leap to a four-year school within five years, and only 17 percent complete a four-year degree within six years of transferring. Over two years, the Lab engaged a cohort of four transfer partnerships in a structured design process, providing the teams access to subject matter experts, coaches, and design specialists to help them develop transformative solutions. The Seamless Transfer Pathways pilots are launching in fall 2019 and results will be tracked through 2025.

Seamless Transfer Pathways Cohort

Miami Dade College + Florida International University

Township High School District 211, William Rainey Harper College, + Northern Illinois University

Collin College + University of North Texas

Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) + George Mason University

Project Updates

Fall 2019Over the past year, the STP teams worked to iterate on their proposed pilots and plan out individual evaluation plans to help assess the impact of their pilots on operational success and to establish objective measures on the impact the pilots have on their campuses and the target student populations.

In May 2019, the Lab published a white paper, Seamless Transfer Pathways: Student-Centered Solutions to Improve Transfer Student Success, documenting lessons learned in the design challenge and highlighting the new solutions to be piloted by the four institutional partnerships in Fall 2019. We followed the release of the paper with a national webinar, “Insights to Action: New Approaches to Seamless Transfer on Your Campus,” presented in collaboration with the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students (NISTS). During this session, the four STP teams shared their learnings and reflections on new approaches to designing transfer pathways. Teams also shared out the how they approached institutional change management and how other campuses might apply similar efforts on their own campuses. Video of the webinar can be found here.

With the start of the Fall 2019 semester, the teams are set to launch their Seamless Transfer Pathways Pilots.

Fall 2018This fall teams are continuing to test and iterate their pilots. It became apparent that each institutional pair needed more time to fine-tune the various features of their pilot and are spending this fall working with faculty, staff, and students to gather additional information necessary for full implementation. Check out the Seamless Transfer Pathways Pilots below:

Team FloridaThe pilot: TRANSFERmation- A comprehensive and enhanced guided pathway intended to improve baccalaureate completion for the more than 8,000 Miami Dade College students interested in a STEM degree.TRANSFERmation

Team IllinoisThe pilot: Business Degree in 3- A streamlined High School through College to work pathway that leverages Illinois Power of 15 programs for students interested in completing a bachelor’s degree in one of NIU’s five different Business pathways.Business Degree in 3

Team TexasThe pilot: Fast-Track Business degree- A supported degree path that streamlines business prerequisite courses for students with an AA/AS from Collin College.Fast-Track Business Degree

Team VirginiaThe pilot: Meet VANCE- a technology-enabled tool to enable advisors and faculty to support better students in their new ADVANCE program. VANCE supports students on their time with accurate, timely, responsive, and personalized information.Meet VANCE

Summer 2018In May 2018 the Seamless Transfer Pathways cohorts convened at the University of North Texas to share their final concepts and finalize their pilots. Teams participated in several design activities throughout the two days. These activities provided each team with feedback from their cohort peers, as well as, selected subject matter experts who were on hand to push the institutions to think bigger and better for their students. The convening ended with each team selecting the first version of their pilot and sharing out the pilot to all in attendance. After the convening teams returned to their campuses and spent the summer creating work plans for implementation, as well as continued testing on the various features with their students.

January/February 2018: Gallery Walk & Ideation SessionsOver the past few months, we’ve spent time collecting and reviewing information from campus teams, including interviews with students, faculty, staff, field observations, and surveys. At the Gallery Walk & Ideation sessions, participants will have an opportunity to explore and experience this information; for our challenge, participants will be able to move around the gallery to review critical elements synthesized from the research. They will develop this research into insights and themes, which will then be used to refine design criteria and help brainstorm ideas for concept development.

October 2017 Kick-Off ConveningThe Lab kicked off the 1st Convening for the Seamless Transfer Pathways Design Challenge in October at George Mason University. Administrators and staff from all nine institutions participated in an intense two-day, interactive design engagement focused on what the Lab calls the “Understand” phase. During this session, team members worked together to parse out important data and information gaps to get a better understanding of the challenges students on their campus face and consider solution opportunities from the student perspective.

Design Challenge Lead

Michelle is a Design Challenge Lead for the Lab’s Badging Challenge. Michelle is also the President of Lead by Experience, offering strategic and tactical consulting to help leadership teams across: business, health care and education improve their customer experience.

Through her coaching, Michelle loves to “gently” break up typical functional silos to stimulate collaboration and steer change management across organizations. She integrates new, cost effective, ways to capture and understand customers’ expectations, wants and needs.

Prior to establishing her own business, Michelle held executive positions in telecommunications at MCI and NII Holdings where she held the position of Senior Director of Customer Experience. Michelle earned a Masters of Arts degree in Education: Curriculum & Instruction from Loyola College in Maryland and completed an Executive Certification in Global Leadership from Georgetown University – the McDonough School of Business.

Michael Meotti

Higher Ed Fellow

Mike brings extensive experience in higher education policy, innovation and management to Education Design Lab’s work. Mike has a broad perspective on the challenges facing colleges and universities based on his past leadership positions in state government, nonprofit organizations and higher education systems. He has led transformation initiatives in all of these sectors.

Mike served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Higher Education and Executive Vice President and chief operating officer of the Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education.

Mike was a member of the Executive Committee and Vice Chair of the Federal Relations Committee of the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO). He led the Connecticut delegation in the National Governors Association Best Practices Academy “Complete to Compete” and in Complete College America. Michael was also active in the state policy track of Achieving the Dream and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Coalition for the Common Core Standards. He earned his J.D. and B.S. degrees from Georgetown University.

Prior to his work in higher education, Mike led several nonprofit organizations that provided services addressing the needs of many “first generation” and returning adult students.